Off the Cliff
Page 27
Darryl (Christopher McDonald) and Thelma in their kitschy kitchen.
Stephen Tobolowsky’s stone-faced FBI agent.
Detective Slocumb (Harvey Keitel) tried to rein in Darryl.
Louise and Jimmy (Michael Madsen) broke up in backlight.
J.D. in the sack with Thelma.
A Polaroid of newcomer Brad Pitt delighted the costume department.
The star-making hair dryer scene.
The director preferred to operate the camera himself.
Ridley Scott sought to convey the open spaces of America
. . . and the patina of the Old West.
One of five vintage Thunderbirds tricked out for filming.
Blocking out the action with the state trooper (Jason Beghe).
Preparing to blow up a truck, the marketing department’s favorite scene.
Ridley Scott’s hand-drawn storyboard for the car chase
. . . and a final drive, sketched on the fly.
Set decorator Anne Ahrens and production designer Norris Spencer dressed the cliff for its close-up.
Last day, last scene.
Producer Mimi Polk (center) toasted the stars on the final day.
Polk, Davis and Scott lit up the Cannes Film Festival.
Callie Khouri scored the Oscar.
Thelma & Louise lives on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Piecing together a story like this one depends on the extraordinary generosity and cooperation of a wide group of people. My heartfelt gratitude to everyone who shared memories and insights. I owe a special debt to those who rooted through attics and basements to find diaries, records and keepsakes, and especially to Geena Davis and Mimi Polk Gitlin, who helped me reach many of the key players.
Others who worked on Thelma & Louise and contributed their stories include (listed alphabetically): Anne Ahrens, Jason Beghe, Ira Belgrade, Jeff Berg, Scotty Bergstein, Kathie Berlin, Diane Cairns, Tim Carhart, Steve Danton, Tracy DeFreitas, Bonita DeHaven, David Eidenberg, Joe Everett, Greg Foster, Brett Goldstein, Ken Haber, Ross Harpold, Bonnie Blackburn Hart, Paul Hartman, Michael Hirabayashi, Lucinda Jenney, Harvey Keitel, Callie Khouri, Luca Kouimelis, Alan Ladd Jr., David Ladd, Steve La Porte, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Greg Morrison, Michael Neale, Kathy Nelson, Roland Neveu, Thom Noble, Dawna O’Brien, Rebecca Pollack Parker, Susan Sarandon, Ridley Scott, Scott Senechal, Diane Spencer, Marco St. John, Amanda Temple, Stephen Tobolowsky, Kenneth Turek, Kami Turrou, Susan Williams and Hans Zimmer.
Those who were invaluable in describing the ways of Hollywood: Candace Allen, Jeanine Basinger, Susan Braudy, Jeremiah Chechik, Martha Coolidge, Lauren Shuler Donner, Richard Donner, Lucy Fisher, Jane Fonda, Carrie Frazier, Neal Gabler, Bill Gerber, Randa Haines, Jonathan Kaplan, Sherry Lansing, Lee McCarthy, Midge Sanford, Richard Schickel, Risa Shapiro, Joan Micklin Silver, Melissa Silverstein, Penelope Spheeris, Barbra Streisand, Pam Tillis, Jim Vallely, David Warfield, Paula Weinstein and Linda Woolverton.
Those who extended themselves to help me navigate the industry: Amy Arce, Ruth Bennett, A. Scott Berg, Madeline Di Nonno, Bryan Gibbs, Debi Karolewski, John Scheinfeld, Andrea Gutierrez and Stu Zakim.
I am also indebted to everyone who assisted me with background research: The team at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, especially Faye Thompson, Stacey Behlmer and Jenny Romero; Edward Sykes Comstock and his coworkers at the Cinematic Arts Library at the University of Southern California; Megan Bradford and Maggie Adams at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Jen Larson at the Grand Ole Opry; Walter Hickey at fivethirtyeight.com; Stephen Follows of Stephen Follows Film Data and Education; two able research assistants, David Campmeier and Andy Werle; James Madore at Newsday; Mary Hammond, Gayle Kaler and Bill Paxton of Paducah, Kentucky; and Ridley Scott’s ace archivist, Andrea Gutíerrez.
Lindsay Maracotta and Peter Graves provided savvy advice and refuge in Los Angeles, and Glenn Kessler weighed in with an incisive reading of the manuscript. The nimble fingers of Craig Williams and Becky Schneider typed scores of hours of transcripts.
More thanks to the team at Penguin Press, especially my editor, Ann Godoff, for her unflappable demeanor and spot-on guidance, Casey Rasch for keeping it all on track and Brooke Parsons for her media savvy. My agent, the ever-sympathetic Joy Harris, supports me in ways big and small.
Lily Spitz inspired me with her foray into media work. And first, last and always, the man who shares my office and my life, my husband, Bob Spitz.
NOTES
I relied on personal interviews for most of this story, supplementing them with accounts published in newspapers, magazines and books, all cited below. Any scenes and conversations that I have reconstructed derive from interviews with one or more of the people who participated. Box-office grosses and rankings come from Box Office Mojo (boxofficemojo.com) and refer to domestic gross unless I specify worldwide gross in the text.
PROLOGUE
of the top-fifty: Rankings of top box-office movies from Box Office Mojo, cross-referenced with screenwriter credits from Internet Movie Database.
that no such woman: Records from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Only seven of the top: Rankings of top box-office movies from Box Office Mojo, cross-referenced with acting credits from Internet Movie Database.
Holy mackerel: Author interview with Diane Cairns, 1/27/15.
“I don’t get it”: Author interview with Ridley Scott, 4/2/15.
“The phone is ringing”: Author interviews with Cairns, 1/26/15, 1/28/15 and 1/30/15, and Bonnie Blackburn Hart, 6/3/15.
“You have a great movie”: Author interview with Cairns, 1/28/15.
“If it was the male”: Ibid.
“I think you should know”: Ibid.
“the chop-chop people”: Author interview with Rebecca Pollack Parker, 11/19/14. Named Rebecca Pollack at the time of the story, she had changed her name by the time of this interview.
“What can I say?”: Author interviews with Cairns, 1/28/15, and Pollack Parker, 2/18/15.
“Everybody loves it here”: Ibid.
I have about a nanosecond: Author interview with Cairns, 1/28/15.
“I’m really thrilled”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 1: ONCE IN TEN LIFETIMES
was utterly at a loss: Callie Khouri’s thoughts derive from author interviews with Khouri, 8/12/14, 2/5/15 and 5/12/15.
“There were directors”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“I saw, in a flash”: Sheila Weller, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” Vanity Fair, February 10, 2012.
“We would get to see them”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“Just to write it”: Author interview with Diane Cairns, 1/26/15.
“A lot of really bad things”: The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter Callie Khouri, www.thedialogueseries.com, 2006. Interview conducted by Mike De Luca. Directed by Dave Modavan.
“All my family”: Author interview with Khouri, 2/5/15.
“I don’t think anyone”: Ibid.
“and yet there are so many things”: Ibid.
“Oh my God”: Ibid.
“It’s my brain”: Ibid.
“For a good ten years”: Ibid.
“You could have said”: Ibid.
“College was a wasted”: Ibid.
“You just feel hands on you”: Ibid.
“Could somebody bring me a Coke”: Author interview with Pam Tillis, 8/12/14.
“Hi, who are you”: Conversation from joint author interview with Tillis and Khouri, 8/12/14.
“We had more power as a team”: Weller, Vanity Fair.
“We were both ultimately ambitious”: Author interview with Tillis, 8/12/14.
“I can play the radio”: Callie Khouri, Thelma & Louise and Something to Talk About: Screenplays (Ne
w York: Grove Press, 1996), viii.
“He always goes on last”: Author interview with Jim Vallely, 3/30/15.
“You had to have your sword”: Author interview with Khouri, 5/12/15.
“Callie! Quit your dogheadedness”: Weller, Vanity Fair.
“You guys write”: Author interview with Vallely, 3/30/15.
“Debra Winger was having”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“Those early years in her twenties”: Author interview with Vallely, 3/30/15.
CHAPTER 2: PROSTITUTES AND EMPTY-HEADED BLONDES
“You don’t tell a man”: Susan Ware, Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005), 403.
“These women were the center”: Author interview with Jeanine Basinger, 3/20/15.
“Women just disappeared”: Ibid.
“When women do get parts”: Judy Klemesrud, “Feminist Goal: Better Image at the Movies,” New York Times, October 13, 1974.
Male speaking roles: Ibid.
top-ten list of box-office stars: Quigley Publishing Company, 2016 poll.
“A lot of talented people”: Author interview with Martha Coolidge, 10/26/14.
“I was appalled”: Author interview with Paula Weinstein, 2/4/14.
“I do really believe”: Rachel Abramowitz, Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? (New York: Random House, 2000), 68.
“I had to eat shit”: Chaim Potok, “The Barbra Streisand Nobody Knows,” Esquire, October 1982.
“It was as if they had this very antiquated”: Author interview with Barbra Streisand, 5/15/15.
“If you’re going to do a story”: Author interview with Jane Fonda, 2/16/15.
“A movie about Vietnam”: Ibid.
“Why does she have to”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 3: “NEXT! NEXT!”
“I’m really sorry”: Author interview with Callie Khouri, 8/12/14.
“I was literally running”: Ibid.
“It was incredibly unsatisfying”: Ibid.
“Everyone was snorting”: Author interview with Amanda Temple, 4/13/15.
“For a hundred a day”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“There were really talented”: Ibid.
“Not big enough tits”: Author interview with Temple, 4/13/15.
“We were both mortified”: Ibid.
“You get what you settle for”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“It was like having a warrior queen”: Author interview with Temple, 4/13/15.
“She could play pool with the boys”: Author interview with David Warfield, 2/14/15.
“It made me fall in love”: Ibid.
“I got this”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
CHAPTER 4: WIELDING A GRACEFUL CLEAVER
“Look, feature films are expensive”: Author interview with Joan Micklin Silver, 2/5/14.
“I cannot tell you”: Author interview with Paula Weinstein, 12/4/14.
“never heard from her again”: Jon Zelazny, “Gems of the 1980s: Susan Seidelman Remembers Desperately Seeking Susan,” The Hollywood Interview, blogspot.com, November 22, 2009.
“You put two women on a poster”: Author interview with Midge Sanford, 12/17/15.
“Don’t ever send”: Author interview with Martha Coolidge, 11/6/14.
“The girls were dressed up”: Ibid.
“We want you to promise”: Ibid.
“I kept trying to change”: Ibid.
“Honey, either learn to type”: Also includes anecdotes that follow. Author interview with Lauren Shuler Donner, 2/26/15.
“You’ve got three choices”: This quote and the continuing anecdote: author interview with Penelope Spheeris, 1/31/15.
“I wanted to have hits”: “An Interview with Amy Heckerling,” Charlie Rose, November 13, 1996.
“It was an intersection”: Manohla Dargis, “Action!!” New York Times, June 21, 2009.
“I had a good period”: Author interview with Randa Haines, 11/19/14.
“Strange behavior”: Ibid.
“Being part of a team”: Daphne Merkin, “Can Anyone Make a Movie for Women?” New York Times Magazine, December 15, 2009.
“She was the funny, smart girl”: Ibid.
“I’d go, ‘I’m tough’”: Author interview with Shuler Donner, 2/26/15.
“When the stakes are high”: Kira Cochrane, “Why are there so few female film-makers?” Guardian, January 31, 2010.
“People want to hire a director”: Author interview with Carrie Frazier, 1/23/15.
CHAPTER 5: TITS AND BULLETS
“I was the product”: Callie Khouri, Thelma & Louise and Something to Talk About: Screenplays (New York: Grove Press, 1996), x.
“I had never done anything”: Author interview with Callie Khouri, 8/12/14.
Are you at work?: Callie Khouri, Thelma and Louise, First Draft, September 1988, Ridley Scott Collection, USC Cinematic Arts Library.
“They flew away”: Khouri, Thelma & Louise and Something to Talk About, xiv.
“It required a certain”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“Polyester was made for this man:” Thelma and Louise, First Draft.
“a pretty good bullshit meter”: Author interview with Pam Tillis, 8/12/14.
“If I’d only had a gun: The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter Callie Khouri, www.thedialogueseries.com, 2006. Interview conducted by Mike De Luca. Directed by Dave Modavan.
“I was writing the movie”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
From 1985 to 1989: Walt Hickey, “The Dollar-and-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women,” fivethirtyeight.com, April 1, 2014, and Bechdeltest.com.
“the audience went crazy”: Larry Rohter, “The Third Woman of ‘Thelma and Louise,’” New York Times, June 5, 1991.
“bimbos, whores and nagging wives”: Ibid.
“Right on, man”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
The biggest trouble with her: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Directed by Steven Spielberg, 1984.
“Oh my God!”: Author interview with Amanda Temple, 4/13/15.
“It’s 9 to 5”: Interview with Khouri, 5/12/15.
If this script ever makes it: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
CHAPTER 6: UNLIKABLE
“It drove me mad”: Author interview with Amanda Temple, 4/13/15.
“There were these girls”: Ibid.
“She was hilarious”: Ibid.
“a little blonde behind a typewriter”: Ibid.
“Her being from the South”: Ibid.
“Can’t they just shoot”: Author interviews with Temple, 4/13/15, and Callie Khouri, 8/12/14, supplied all the quotes from the meetings.
“This whole issue”: Author interview with Temple, 4/13/15.
“We were sure”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“I was savvy enough”: Author interview with Temple, 4/13/15.
“Mimi,” she said as she: Ibid.
“I loved your script”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“Is it all right”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14, and Mimi Polk Gitlin, 7/22/14. Named Mimi Polk at the time of this story, she later changed her name to Mimi Polk Gitlin.
“It had all gone so well”: Author interview with Khouri, 8/12/14.
“Ridley loves it, too”: Author interview with Polk Gitlin, 7/22/14.
“Callie,” Amanda said: Author interview with Temple, 4/13/15.
“Oh my God, the Scott brothers”: Ibid.
“Callie, it’s now going”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 7: THE EPIC IN RIDLEY SCOTT’S HEAD
“You think you’re winning”: Author interview with Ridley Scott, 4/2/15.
Wow, he
thought: Ibid.
“I could see the film”: Ibid.
As long as a studio: Ibid.
called him Mr. Macho: Author interview with Jeff Berg, 2/26/15.
“He hadn’t been any kind”: Author interview with Susan Sarandon, 10/30/15.
“The bottom line is”: Author interview with Hans Zimmer, 11/17/14.
“My mom was four foot eleven”: Author interview with Scott, 4/2/15.
“By the standards of mothers”: Ibid.
“To me, it was a medal”: Marlow Stern, “Ridley Scott on The Martian, his groundbreaking 1984 Apple commercial and Prometheus 2,” Daily Beast, September 26, 2015.
“Dad was a very gentle”: Stephen Galloway, Tony Scott’s Unpublished Interview: “My Family Is Everything to Me,” Hollywood Reporter, August 22, 2012.
“I hated school”: Author interview with Scott, 4/2/15.
“It was just too silly”: Kenneth Turan, “DGA Interviews: Man of Vision,” Directors Guild of America website, Fall 2010.
“the world began for me”: Lynn Barber, “Ridley Scott: Talking to actors was tricky—I had no idea where they were coming from,” Guardian, January 6, 2002.
“You know how when you get hot”: Author interview with Scott, 4/2/15.
“fit of total depression”: Ibid.
“What do you think”: Author interview with Alan Ladd Jr., 11/17/14.
“It was not for any reason”: Ibid.
“Great idea”: Author interview with Scott, 4/2/15.
“I never thought about it”: Ibid.